Mini-Paint: Chewbacca Action Figure

Action Figure Painting:

Chewbacca

In memory of the late, great Peter Mayhew, here's a painting of a Chewbacca action figure.  When I was a kid, I always thought of Chewie as Han Solo's pet.  Nowadays, I have to wonder if Han was actually Chewie's pet... 

Alas, it is a little delayed, as I had to wait until I visited my Mom again to raid some more of my childhood action figures (I have a fist full of 'em to paint in the future).  Sure, I could have just pulled an image off the internet, but it somehow felt like cheating, so once I was able to get my filthy mitts on the actual action figure, I set to do another Quick Paint.  It was done with gouache--an opaque watercolor.

Again, I should probably be doing more of these Quick Paintings... and probably will.  So, look forward to more "Inaction Figures" in the future, sprinkled throughout!

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STEP ONE:  I used a mixture of light-blue casein (sort of like an acrylic paint, except it uses a milk-based protein as the binder) and matte medium as a sort of ad hoc gesso on a 6" x 9" piece of Canson XL (#140) watercolor paper.  I then used a colored pencil to draw out the image, as it would both be lighter to allow for it to more easily covered by the gouache, and would also smear less as it was painted over.  

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STEP TWO:  This is the first step in laying down a layer of warm colors over it's complimentary color (blue and orange/brown are on opposite sides of the color wheel... I won't bore you with color theory at the moment).  Laying down a light layer of gouache also gives the new layers of paint something to grab onto and do more opaque paints.

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STEP THREE:  And, after a **LOT** of painting and re-painting shadows and highlights, here is the finished painting.  It took an embarrassing amount of time to finish this (4-5 hours), but it turned out all right, all things considered.

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Done with gouache on 6" x 9" Canson XL (#140) watercolor paper.

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Revenge of the Fifth/Sixth - 2019

Revenge of the Fifth 2019 /

Revenge of the Sixth - 2019

Hey, I made it just under the wire of being only one week late!  Um, nevermind trying to diagram the meaning of that sentence... It boils down to I was busy--mostly out of town--during "May the Fourth" and "Revenge of the Fifth"/"Revenge of the Sixth", so it messed up my schedule quite a bit.  But, excuses are like E. coli... everyone has about a trillion of 'em.

For some dumb reason, "Revenge of the Fifth" seems more popular than "Revenge of the Sixth", even though "Sixth" is a better pun of "Sith", IMHO--although "Fifth" has the singular advantage of being the next day to "May the Fourth".

Anyhoo, once again, my lone, Quixotic vision of having Jaxxon the Rabbit being returned to "Star Wars" canon has motivated another cartoon/comic strip this year.  Why do I keep doing this to myself and others each year?  What part of "Quixotic" don't you understand?  :-P

This time around, Jaxxon is Quantum Leaping into Darth Vader having a heart-to-heart with his son, Luke (if you'll forgive the reference to the 90's TV Series, "Quantum Leap").

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STEP ONE:  It's the quickly scribbled blue line pencils, done in Clip Studio Paint EX.  The canvas is 1,500px x 2,250px at 600dpi.

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STEP TWO:  The inks were done in Clip Studio Paint EX, with a standard inking brush. 

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STEP THREE:  Finally, the coloring was done on a series of Multiply Layers.  When it was done, I imported the image into Photoshop to reduce the resolution and output it as a .jpg for the Blog you are indifferently starting at right now... as... you... read... these... words...  :-P

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint EX.

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May the Fourth Be With You - 2019

May the Fourth Be With You!

Hey, it's my "May the Fourth Be With You" for 2019.

"But, John," I can hear you saying, "it's May 11th.  You're a week late!"  Yes, well, that is true... but I was busy!  So there!  

"But, John, where is Jaxxon the giant, green, Star Wars rabbit?  Aren't you supposed to be on some Quixotic quest to get Jaxxon back into Star Wars cannon?"  Very true!  But, that post will have to wait until either Sunday May 12th, or Monday, May 13th, when I do my posting for "Revenge of the Fifth/Sixth".  See?  It all makes perfect sense!

Anyhoo, this a really dumb mash-up which I alluded to last year when I used the Power Droid/Gonk Droid/GNK Droid for one of my "Unwanted Valentines".  In fact, I used most of the drawing of the GNK Droid from the "Unwanted Valentine" and just added the arm and He-Man's sword.  Two parts of my childhood, Star Wars and He-Man, brought together!  You got your chocolate in my peanut butter!  And you got your peanut butter on my chocolate!

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STEP ONE:  Just for fun, I included the line drawing for the Power Droid.  It was done on a 1,500px x 2,100px canvas at 300dpi.  When I dropped the resolution to 200dpi for posting on the Blog, it resized to 1,000px x 1,400px.

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STEP TWO:  Hey, it's a bunch of colors which were done on a series of layers.  I used the Radial Perspective tool in Clip Studio Paint to make the radiating lights from the He-Man sword.

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Done digitally in Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint EX.

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Mini-Paint: Death Star Droid Action Figure

Action Figure Painting:

Death Star Droid (3B6-RA-7 Protocol/Spy Droid)

For no reason at all, here's a watercolor/gouache painting of an action figure I owned as a kid: the Death Star Droid (although, he was actually seen on the Jawa's Sandcrawler on Tatooine, so... Sandcrawler Droid?).  It's been a while since I've done a "Quick Paint", and no real reason I shouldn't do more of 'em, now that I think of it.

My Mom was doing some spring cleaning, going through a bunch of old action figures we owned as kids and, when I was visiting, I saw the Death Star Droid action figure and felt like painting something shiny.  So, here we are.

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STEP ONE:  Here are the pencils done with a .5mm mechanical pencil on 6" x 9" Canson XL watercolor paper.

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STEP TWO:  Here is the quick under-painting, done in about 20-30 minutes.  I kept the palette very limited--Carbon Black, Titanium White, Yellow Ochre, and Ultramarine Blue.

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STEP THREE:  And here's the finished painting, with a total time of about 4 hours... much longer than I intended.  One of the problems with painting something so shiny is that because I was a moron, I just held it in one hand and painted with the other (I needed it close enough to properly see the detail of what I was painting).  So, any little turn or change in position in my hand, caused a significant change in the lighting/highlights with the action figure.  Sigh...

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Done with watercolor/gouache on 6" x 9" Canson XL watercolor paper.

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